Those who know me know that I have an unnatural love for Google Earth. It probably ties to my attraction to maps and travel in general, but the upshot is that I can get lost for hours soaring from place to place.

Sooner or later a great tool like GE leads to the urge to do something productive with it, hence my road trip project. In 2002 I made a solo motorcycle trip across the country, going from Michigan to Seattle to San Francisco and back to Michigan. These were the olden days, so although I had a GPS with me, I mostly navigated by paper and pencil. Whenever I entered a new state I’d buy a nice road map at the gas station (Rand McNally makes good ones) and I used it both to plan my route and to record it.

Shortly after GE was available (I don’t remember exactly when, but it was years ago) I decided I’d recreate my road trip in it, plotting the path I took and the places I stayed. For most of the route, this was a painstaking process of repeatedly clicking out my path, turn by turn, and so my progress was slow, especially once I reached the twisty roads out west. However, recently I discovered a shortcut using Google Map’s driving directions and KML export that cut the time required by 99%, and finally I’m finished.

For those of you who are curious–or bored–here’s a file containing the record of my trip. It has the route itself (red for travel between destinations, blue for side trips), places I stayed (tents for campsites, houses for homes and hostels), and photos I took along the way.